It comes as no great surprise that Pope Frank is on the side of the terrorists. We should keep in mind that, when it comes to the issue of freedom of expression, the Catholic Church is more aligned with Islam than Western Civilization. For the last 2000 years the Catholic Church has aggressively censored speech, art, science, writing, and intellectual thought that didn’t align with Church doctrine.

Like modern-day Islam, the Catholic Church used fear and terror to subdue intellectual thought through several mechanisms – the most well-known being the Inquisition – which spread across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa for 600 years; investigating, weeding out, torturing – and often murdering – those accused of heresy or blasphemy. Just as with Islam today, the Catholic Church back then had no problem persecuting and killing those who spoke out against the church, the pope, the Bible, Jesus or God. Like the satirists at Charlie Hebdo, Michealangelo, DaVinci, Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, Newton and millions like them lived in constant fear for their lives for expressing their views; views that contradicted and often insulted the church.

“All true,” says the Church. “But that was then and this is now.” The Catholic Church has indeed come a long way since those bloody centuries. But it still stands as a bastion of narrow-mindedness and ridiculous dogma rooted in the ignorance of 2000 years ago. The Church still guards its secrets and protects its lies. Despite its protestations to the contrary, the Church still fears science and intellect and free expression because these things have the power to reveal the man behind the curtain. So it makes sense that Pope Frank is with the terrorists – however much we wish he wouldn’t be. He is the defender of the faith and that means defending it against all threats – including free expression.

Once again we have serious conflict between Israel and Hamas. Hamas fires rockets, Israel fires back. Repeat daily.

Israel seems to be getting hammered by the U.S. media this time around – at least from what I have seen on NBC. Formerly very pro-Israel, NBC now seems to be covering the story from the Hamas side; giving heavy play to the destruction and loss of so-called innocent life in Gaza while devoting little airtime to the Israeli point-of-view.

Don’t get me wrong, I oppose America’s blind, no-questions-asked support of Israel. It’s a ridiculous policy that has fostered hate against America around the world and has served as a foundation for Israeli bad behavior like building illegal settlements, illegal land appropriation and the flagrant mistreatment of Palestinians.

But what Palestinians and their supporters around the world need to understand is that their problems are completely and concisely rooted in their staunch determination to destroy Israel and their refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist. This one thing represents the impediment to peace.

I doubt America’s relationships with Canada or Mexico would be so friendly if they were sworn to our destruction and murder.

So, America’s blind support of Israel is not even the issue at hand. The issue is Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself against those who seek to destroy it. Hamas has insidiously woven its weaponry and military through the neighborhoods, schools, hospitals and markets of its own people. Of course Israel’s attacks to destroy Hamas’s military capability and weaponry will result in civilian casualties. That was Hamas’s plan from the start along with its plan to use those casualties as propaganda to weaken support for Israel.

But Israel is not the aggressor here. Israel has been under siege for weeks and has exercised great patience and discipline in its responses to Hamas. The time for patience, however, is ending and Israel must do what it must do – what we all know it must do.

NBC News and the world media need to stop buying into the Hamas propaganda that Israel is killing innocents. Those so-called innocents are all sworn to annihilate Israel. Those so-called innocents elected Hamas as their leadership and, in doing so, endorsed Hamas’s methods. They are no more innocent than the Germans who elected Hitler and then stood by while he committed the worst genocide in history.

If the Palestinians truly care for the innocent women and children who are in harm’s way, they have the power to remove Hamas from leadership and denounce the destruction of Israel. If they do that, I am quite confident that Israel will be the first ones to the peace table.